Everyone’s “unelectable” - until they are.
Before 2008, no non-white candidate who’d only been Senator for 4 years had been elected president. Until Obama.
Before 2016, no person with the immense taint of scandal of Trump, and who had never before served in the military or held elected office, had been elected president. Until Trump.
There’s not a single real reason why Kamala can’t win in 2024 or 2028.
Why would I trust you and @LSLGuy to start allowing non whites to participate in national politics once you got what you wanted?
You’ll always find an excuse as to why we’ll have to wait until next election to be seen as equals.
She’s actually a triple minority. Harris is biracial; her father is black and her mother was Indian.
Being female is enough to disqualify her. Being non-white is obviously not, as we have had a non-white president. Being married to a Jewish man is not especially relevant. The personality traits that Americans expect from a President, and the personality traits that Americans expect from a female leader, are so oppositional that there is no way a woman could be elected President. I do not mean to disparage women; this is an indictment of our culture and our political process that focuses far too much on personality in general.
There are also the allegations by the Right that she slept her way to the top in California by having an affair with Willie Brown while he was still married. He’d been separated from his wife for several years when he and Harris dated, and their relationship was not a secret, but the Republicans have trotted that out on occasion.
Mostly the mentions to this I’ve seen are from republican voters, but I’ve never seen any republican actually try to dispel the idea.
But this is a hindsight thing. That’s what would have been said about Obama, pre-2008. Bear in mind, too, that Hillary Clinton was only a thin margin away from capturing the presidency in 2016.
If Kamala runs in 2028 and wins, then people are going to say exactly what you just said here, but with a twist. They’ll say something like, “Being lesbian is enough to disqualify (some candidate.) Being female is obviously not, as we have had a female president, Kamala.”
…pretty much this. Not in the current environment.
I don’t think Harris is “unelectable,” but I don’t think she’s going to be elected the way Biden was – i.e. holding onto core Democratic constituencies and improving just enough with white, blue-collar voters to bring WI, MI and PA back to the Democratic fold. Biden was uniquely well positioned to execute this strategy – he had spent decades honing his pitch to “working class” voters.
But it’s also true that every successful Presidential campaign builds at least a slightly different coalition than its predecessor. The question is where she can pick up votes to make up for the votes she’s likely to lose from Biden’s coalition. Demographic changes may help some – each passing year kills off more MAGA-hatted Boomers and brings more hep young people onto the voting rolls. But she’s got to find those voters somewhere.
What???
See: Donald Trump.
I think Harris is electable in 2028–if she gets to serve as president before then and logs some successes.
If Harris is selected as Biden’s VP (certain barring some untoward event) and Biden wins (highly likely), then the question is how likely it is for Biden to complete his second term. I’m not an actuary, but, based on my gut, I’d say that Biden has only about a 60% chance of finishing his term. My breakdown of chances:
I think 40% may actually be low. I don’t think it will be controversial to say that Biden doesn’t seem all that healthy. My guess is that Biden says to those close to him, “We’ve just got to win this thing and worry about the rest afterward.”
Per my last bullet point above, he may even intend to step down early, perhaps with such timing that Harris could serve just under two years to complete his term and therefore, per the 22nd Amendment, be eligible to serve two terms of her own. Even if such an intention isn’t fully formed in his mind, it would seem to be an obvious strategy should Biden’s health take a turn for the worse.
My perhaps contrarian opinion is that Harris would step up and fill the role of president well. I think she is the type of person who, when she doesn’t have a lot to do, giggles and goofs around and doesn’t seem all that serious yet performs when the actual pressure is on.
If, in such a scenario, she has any leadership successes at all, she would be a formidable candidate in 2028. Even two years will engender a strong aura of incumbency around her. Further, if Biden is deceased, sadness about his passing and nostalgia for his presidency will be at least a breeze at her back, but more likely a strong wind.
If Biden finishes out his term, however, I think it would be tough for her if–and it’s a big if–the Republicans have gotten rid of some of crazy by then. But, for all we know, Trump will be running again in 2028–or his mad successor. In such a case, who knows, Harris might do fine.
I can certainly understand your sensitivity here. But you seem to be shooting the messenger, rather than the actual cause(s) of the message.
If we put up a nonwhite aand/or non-male the D voter participation favoring them goes up 5% and at the same time the R voter participation to vote against them goes up 20%. And especially so in the swing districts and swing states.
The name of the game is to beat the Rs, not hand them an extra stick that they will very effectively beat the Ds with. And especially use to beat the minority Ds with once they have won.
It’s a f***ed up situation. It pains me to think or say these ideas, it really does. Even if you do not believe I’m sincere when I say that.
You are of course welcome to disagree w my opinion. If you have facts contrary to my facts I’ll be happy to listen to them and if appropriate change my opinion. But please don’t mischaracterize my opinion on the basis of mere cynicism. Even if it is highly well-founded cynicism in general.
When you’re actively trying to prevent minorities from holding political power, it’s hard to believe your crocodile tears.
At some point in time it’s no longer pandering it’s just what you are.
The last post goes too far for me, but I want to agree with what I just quoted
The nation is closely divided, and the election will be close. It will be the kind of election where if it came a few days sooner or later, you’d get a different outcome, regardless of candidate identity.
Every candidate has electoral weaknesses. Biden apparently convinced himself that the memes concerning Harris’s unpopularity are a bigger negative than his age.
When I checked the polling averages, it did seem that Biden is better positioned than Harris to win. But Harris has an advantage in that if she gets ill, it won’t affect the election, because everyone will think she’ll get better. But if Biden has a health issue in the next 18 months, it will hurt his standing. And how many 80 year olds go for 18 months without a health issue?
Most American sexists and racists don’t want to think they are. So they may vote for a woman or minority, of a certain kind, to show they are not bigoted. If Harris was nominated for president, and then stressed having been a prosecutor, she could pick up some such votes. Biden should have bowed out with the expectation that Kamala was next in line.
I can see the instant argument the GOP and all of those not-racist racists and misogynists will make, though: “She only got here because Biden smoothed the way!”
Something of a no-win situation in some regards.
If the party that nominated and elected Kamala Harris and Barack fucking Obama is actively trying to prevent minorities from holding political power . . . it’s yet another thing Democrats just ain’t very good at.
Wait. The people who want to return to the all-white-male tickets that lost in 2000 and 2004, as opposed to the diverse tickets that won in 2008, 2012 and 2020 are the “practical” wing? I think you misspelled “racist and misogynist”.
She has nothing like the qualifications people feel necessary in a president. She’s not a good speaker, not with a prepared script and flat out awful at answering questions. She has little experience in anything except as a prosecutor in California. Personally I think that doesn’t say much even for the position of prosecutor or a state AG… because California. She has minimal political relationships, no experience in the federal government save for her position as VP which she seems to be returning to it’s previous status as nearly pointless while the president is alive.
No experience in the Federal government except serving in the US Senate as a representative of the largest State in the Union?
Racism and misogyny, anyone?
Yes, the racist and misogynist faction.
Yes, leading to the horrible disasters of 2016, when we won by two million votes, and 2020.
And now Discourse is making me clump several posts into one because it sucks.
THIS!!!
Being female is enough to disqualify her. Being non-white is obviously not, as we have had a non-white president. Being married to a Jewish man is not especially relevant. The personality traits that Americans expect from a President, and the personality traits that Americans expect from a female leader, are so oppositional that there is no way a woman could be elected President. I do not mean to disparage women; this is an indictment of our culture and our political process that focuses far too much on personality in general.
SHE WON THE FUCKING ELECTION BY TWO MILLION VOTES! Yes, Electoral College, but anyone who took the lesson from that election that no woman could ever possibly win is…(can’t think of a forum-appropriate way to end that sentence).
IMHO, a lot of progressives don’t understand that when it comes to elections, the name of the game is “win.” It’s not “see who can put forth the most diverse slate of candidates.” Just like, if your team is in the Super Bowl, you want your team to field the best 11 men possible - not the most diverse 11 men possible.
That being said, though, many Democrats way overestimate the white-candidate advantage or minority-candidate disadvantage.